


passage overland

by tigrrmilk



Category: due South
Genre: Established Relationship, I AM A FUN PERSON, M/M, Public Transportation, SO, Self-Esteem Issues, and like... ray and fraser touching each other on public transport, the summary and tags make this sound super angsty BUT it involves romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 10:13:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14850833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigrrmilk/pseuds/tigrrmilk
Summary: It’s like being a teenager again: the world is full of strangers and enemies. Or maybe that's just all in Ray's head.





	passage overland

**Author's Note:**

> warning for: brief discussions of homophobia/one homophobic slur.

 

and through the night, behind the wheel, the mileage clicking west  
i think upon Mackenzie, David Thompson and the rest  
who cracked the mountain ramparts and did show a path for me  
to race the roaring Fraser to the sea

**stan rogers - northwest passage**

 

 

 

 

Ray was never much of a public transport fan. When he was a small kid, he used to get sick on the school bus. Well, it was only like, three times over a period of about four years but stuff like that sticks around. Kids are mean and dumb, and Ray was known as _Pukeski_ well through Junior high.

It’s not like he’s got a complex about it or anything.

When Ray was old enough to want to go places around the city on his own, he liked driving way more than he liked taking the L. The trains always made him feel exposed; it was like being shut in a tin can with strangers and enemies all around. He could feel so many _eyes_ on him, and nowhere to hide from them.

Ray liked driving. Still likes driving, although it’s a bit different with a snowmobile or the old jeep he keeps saying to Fraser they should replace without doing anything about it. In Chicago, in his late teens, he’d drive with the window open, sunglasses on, nobody in the car except Stella, and the radio blasting songs and static when he dropped out of a coverage area. He didn’t get carsick when driving, but instead sometimes he got goosepimples all up and down his arms when there was a clear stretch of road ahead of him. It felt good.

Not that he came across that situation much in the city. But sometimes the stars aligned. Best of all, there was nobody around judging him except Stella, and he didn’t care if she was judging him because she was there, she was with him _on purpose_. Clearly she wasn’t judging him too badly. So why would he give that up to take the bus or the train?

Besides, back when he was a beat cop he used to get called out for the weirdest shit that went down on the L. Okay, it was just regular Chicago-weird, not _Fraser_ -weird, but even so. People jumping onto the tracks on purpose, people stealing signalling cables, a train full of people that got stuck in a tunnel for hours and some group of kids thought that picking everybody’s pockets would be a great fucking idea. Jesus. No, give Ray a car of his own any day, thank you.

None of which explains why he doesn’t hire a car when he’s back in Chicago for the week with Fraser. They’re down to see old friends, to help Welsh out on an unofficial basis with a case nobody can crack, and to see a Paul Westerberg show. Ray’s pretty hopeful that he’ll bust out some of the Replacements favourites.

The hotel is just over the road from an L stop. It’s a pretty good deal, the trains run 24 hours. And it’s not like they’re earning so much up in the Northwest Territories, as Ray’s not a cop up there. And. It’s best not to spend all that money.

“It’s perfectly fine, Ray,” Fraser says, like Ray doesn’t know how he prefers walking anyhow.

It’s close to a decade since he’s been on one of these things, best Ray can guess. The show’s at the Vic, and it goes on late. Ray doesn’t drink, like he did the last time he saw Westerberg - the Replacements breakup show in the summer of ‘91, which was a summer of lots of other breakups and breakdowns and also the summer Ray knew he had to quit drinking, and Christ that’s more than a decade ago now - but when he comes out of the theater he’s buzzing and warm all over, and not just from the number of people he was pressed up against in there, dancing and cheering and jumping along with.

It’s a humid night. He’s not used to this kind of hot Chicago summer day anymore, let alone a hot Chicago night. He turns around to let Fraser catch up, and in comparison to Ray he seems to be visibly _wilting_.

“Guess it’s not really your scene, huh,” Ray says. He bumps his arm into Fraser’s.

Fraser wipes at his forehead and doesn’t dignify the question with an answer beyond that _look_.

Ray’s shirt is stuck to his back with sweat. He can feel it prickle. His jacket is thrown over one arm. “C’mon, you can make it to Belmont,” he says, pointing across the street with two fingers. As if tired Fraser couldn’t still walk the fucking Oregon Trail if he had to.

Fraser helps an elderly lady across the street and politely declines her offer of a tarot reading. Ray puts his jacket on and finds himself singing _Here Comes A Regular_ under his breath.

The carriage is pretty empty when they get on, but Fraser tries to stand anyway. It’s bullshit, Ray can see how tired he is, even if nobody else would know how to look for the signs. He tugs on Fraser’s sleeve and gets him into the seat next to him. “You can offer it to any other old ladies who want to tell your fortune,” Ray mumbles into Fraser’s hair. “At the next stop, maybe.”

It’s a twenty minute journey out. Ray finds himself looping his arm around Fraser’s neck; he pulls him in close. Fraser gives in quickly, and burrows against Ray’s neck for a quick second, then settles for resting his head on Ray’s shoulder, the top of his hair tickling against Ray’s throat.

Ray barely knows what to do with himself. A half-empty carriage is still a half-full one. There are other people here, they can see them _together_. He catches glimpses of himself in the window opposite, in the darkness of the tunnels and the night outside.

It’s the summer of 2002, and it’s a far cry from the environment Ray grew up in; in Junior High sometimes he was glad when kids brought out the old _Pukeski_ name because at least it meant they weren’t just calling him a _fag_.

But in a lot of ways it’s not really that different. He’s just not around people so much of the time, and he’s older, and he tries hard to not care so much. So he looks in the window opposite, and notices Fraser’s closed eyes, the way he’s resting so much of his weight on Ray’s shoulder. Which pretty soon is going to fucking hurt, or at least give him a dead arm, but he doesn’t mind so much.

He notices the people around them, too. A couple of other middle aged guys in Replacements shirts with receding hairlines, but mostly it’s just a lot of strangers who he knows nothing about. He’s only been away for half a decade but he already has no rea; instinct for who they are, what their deal is.

It’s like being a teenager again: the world is full of strangers and enemies.

But Fraser snuffles against his neck again, and they’re in public, and Ray goes slightly boneless and prickly on his back and elsewhere. It’s the L, which is like, the least sexy setting he can imagine. And yet. He can smell Fraser’s hair, and he can see what they look like, in the window opposite he can see exactly what everybody else can see.

He never did this with Stella. They probably rode the train a handful of times, he can’t remember any of them now. But it never felt like this, it was just the bad stuff. Just the small fears, eating away at him. The ones that were always there, the ones that aren’t about Fraser or Stella but are all Ray. There are half a dozen reasons Ray won’t name why it wouldn’t have been so fraught when he was younger, and most of them start with _Fraser_.

But it’s the same face staring back at himself now that it would have been ten, fifteen years ago. And that’s the worst of it. And it’s something else, too. It’s the face Fraser kissed last not more than an hour ago, the face Ray’s always going to have, and that he’s trying to make peace with. It’s been more than forty years and he’s still not there yet. It’s a bumpy journey.

They pass through another station, and another station. The announcements bounce off Ray, they don’t mean anything much. Ray’s hair is sweaty and sticking up everywhere, and sleepy Fraser still looks pretty much like a male model. “Hey,” Ray says. “Next stop’s us.”

Fraser doesn’t sit up, but Ray knows he’s still awake because Fraser’s curling his arm around Ray’s other shoulder, running his fingers up his neck, whorling one of them around Ray’s ear. Ray shivers, but doesn’t tell him to cut it out.

He’s still watching them in the window opposite. There’s even an old lady sitting over there, directly across from Fraser. Ray wonders if she cares. But he doesn’t want to watch her; he wants to keep watching this. Usually when he sees himself in a mirror he wants to fix things. His collar, his hair, his face, why can’t he stop fucking scowling or sneering or looking so dumb.

Right now he’s tired and kind of scared shitless and turned on, thanks Fraser, and he’s not smiling but he looks pretty happy. And before the train pulls into their station he leans back into Fraser some more, and takes a deep sniff of his hair.

For a second he closes his eyes and he can’t see himself. He stops thinking about his messiness or the ugly look in his own eyes that he can’t put a name to.

Fraser smells pretty much the same as usual. Clean sweat, unscented soap, a bit of wax, a tiny hint of menthol. Not much to it, but it’s Fraser, so it’s everything.

“Ray,” Fraser says. “Ray, Ray, Ray.” The train scrapes to a stop, all metal and small bursts of lightning outside.

“I’m on it, I’ve got this, I’m king of the fucking L train,” Ray says, and now he feels like the sleepy one, but he tugs Fraser along with him and off the train and out into the night, which feels colder than it did before, and they’re not so central so they can see way more stars, but it’s still got nothing on Inuvik in winter.

Tomorrow they’re going to see Welsh again, and they’ve got a few more days of seeing the Vecchios and Stella’s brother for coffee and running errands for Ray’s parents before they can head back up north again. Ray’s not homesick, and in a lot of ways Chicago still feels like home.

But it’s different here now. He’s not sure he’ll miss it when he leaves it behind for Inuvik, where the sun doesn’t set all winter, and their shitty old jeep with spiked tires he fitted himself.

As soon as they get through their hotel room door, Fraser’s not so tired-looking any longer. He presses Ray up against the door and he bites his ear. “Ugh,” Ray says, although he doesn’t mean it.

They take the L again in the morning. Ray’s hair looks even stupider in the daytime. He turns away from the window and rests his head against Fraser, this time. The train is full of people and they’re standing up. “Ray,” Fraser says, quietly, but he doesn’t say anything else, and he doesn’t move away.

Ray ignores the hairs that rise on the back of his neck, and tries his best to forget all the eyes that could be on him. He can feel Fraser’s thumb on his hip, and the way he knocks up against him with the way the train moves. That’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> please do come and talk to me about due south at [my tumblr](https://alwaysalreadyangry.tumblr.com/ask). be nice.
> 
> the replacements played a [legendarily awful show in chicago the summer of 1991](https://medium.com/cuepoint/the-disastrous-show-that-made-the-replacements-legendary-a9fc4c742474); they basically broke up onstage. i think that's a few years before stella and ray broke up but it could have been a rough patch for them. paul westerberg [did play a concert at the chicago vic in september 2002](http://www.guitars101.com/forums/f145/paul-westerberg-2002-08-09-vic-theater-chicago-il-482857.html). i also researched weather and transport and stuff for this but i am sure i got some details wrong, apologies.


End file.
